Jan 24, 2023
Armita Abbasi (21) has been in prison for over 3 months now. Ever since, she has been tortured, raped, and unable to meet her lawyers. On Monday, January 23, Armita’s lawyers resigned from defending her “not being able to meet their client”. They said that defending the client, considering the situation, is almost impossible. Armita’s court will be held in a week, while she has no lawyer at this point.
Targeted Eyes
Many individuals lost their eyesight to shotguns’ pallets while protesting for Woman, Life, Freedom. Kosar (Mahbanoo) Khoshnoudikia, an athlete, is now also one of them. She lost her left eyesight completely. Back in November, The New York Times, based on the statements of doctors, reported that in only 3 hospitals in Tehran, their wards had admitted at least 500 protesters with grave eye injuries. Ghazal Ranjkesh, Elaheh Tavakolian and Farideh Salavati-Pour are among many who have lost sight of one or both eyes.
Retirement Needs
On Monday, January 23, telecommunication retirees gathered in different cities to protest against their unmet needs. These protests happened in at least 10 regions in Iran.
More Reactions From European Countries; Not The One Iranians Demanded
Josep Borrell said about adding IRGC to the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union: "You cannot say I consider you a terrorist because I don't like you. It has to be when a court of one member state issues a legal statement, a concrete condemnation and then we work at European level, but there first has to be a court decision."
James Cleverly, Britain’s foreign secretary, announced new sanctions against the Islamic Republic judiciary and Basij officials. Five military personnel and two organizations affiliated with Basij are on this list. As a result, Britain blocked some of their financial assets.
Sweden also announced that 37 new individuals and governmental organizations from Iran had been added to their sanction list.
The European Union sanctioned Hamid Sajjadi, the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports of the Islamic Republic, because of pressuring athletes and forcing them to remain silent about the protests.
Moreover, Catherine Colonna, France's foreign affairs minister, mentioned that IRGC has been on the sanction list since 2010 because of “development of mass destruction weapons”. New sanctions, such as listing IRGC as a terrorist organization, are based on “Human Rights Violations”. Colonna says that while this is something that needs to be addressed, it takes time and cannot happen immediately.
On Monday, Mizan news agency affiliated with the regime's judiciary reported that the appeal request of Mohammad Ghobadlou has been registered in the Supreme Court. He was previously sentenced to death by the Tehran Revolutionary Court and the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court.